Sakura's Drumset

Most of the technical information you will find here has been collected from Pearl site and Pearl catalogues. As much as I regret it, I haven't had the chance to go ask Sakura himself about his drumset (or about anything for that matter). Please bear in mind that I am not a drummer. I know a little about drums and drumming (but not much) so expect mistakes.

By clicking on the cute drummer in the pic above, you'll get to see Sakura's basic drumset nowadays as it is advertised by Pearl. This is a very expensive model, CM Carbonply Maple by Pearl. As far as I know, a few drummers in the west also have this model, and when it was launched in 2002 it was a limited edition. The CM parts may come with three types of finishing. See for yourselves. Sakura's set has black chrome finishing (which doesn't surprise us, since he loves black).

I believe Megadeth's drummer has a similar set, with black chrome finishing too. ^^

Sakura hasn't always used this model, although he has (as far as I know) been playing Pearl drums ever since he went pro, and he's also a Pearl endorser (which means, Pearl sponsors him). He has participated in many drums clinics, most of which were organized by Pearl.

But maybe in order to talk about his musical instrument more properly, I should start by describing what a drumset is like (which those who aren't drummers might probably not know, and those who are drummers, or drummer-wannabes will probably laugh at me for... but at this point, I'm hella used to it.)

A drum-set consists of four elements: drums, cymbals, hardware (stands, mounting devices and pedals) and a stool or "throne."

Here we have a basic scheme of Sakura's drumset. (as can be found at Pearl site)

This is the reading:

A: 20" HH Medium Ride
B: 18" HH Medium Crash
C: 18" HH Medium Thin Crash
D: 10" HH Splash
E: 20" HH Chinese
F: 14" HH Regular hats (top and bottom)

FT = Foot tom
TT = tom tom
SD = snare drum
BD = bass drum

(CM stands for Carbonply Maple, which is the drumset)

I'm gonna start by that big, round thing in the front part of the drumset which is the first thing one notices (not counting the drummer himself). That is the Bass Drum. And if you are still clueless about what I mean... look at the picture to your left.

The Bass Drum is the largest drum. It sits on the floor and it's played using a pedal. Sakura uses a 24" x 18" bass drum, actioned by a single pedal. (there are both single and double pedals) The pedal model is Power Shifter Eliminator Belt Drive, P-2000B as you can see in the pic and it is connected to the BD via clamp. However, it is fair to warn that Sakura has customized his bass drum pedal to suit his needs, as we can see in his book about drumming

Since the BD is rather round-ish it needs to be kept from rolling about (which would be funny, yes, but rather inconvenient). In order to accomplish this a set of Bass Drum spurs is used (take a look at the pic to your left, you will see a couple legs coming out of the lower part of the BD... these are the BD spurs) These rods are adjusted to the BD with a couple holders that, in Sakura's drumset, look like this:

There is a matching bracket at each side of the BD. (I am not going to put up a pic of every single little thingummy... it would cram up the look of the article and I wouldn't provide very useful info, so I'll content myself with giving images of whatever I find interesting.)

A Snare drum is a relatively small drum with, as the name would suggest it, snares across the bottom head. Usually there is a lever on the side of the drum which releases or engages them creating different sound effects.

Sakura uses CM 1465S/B snare drums 14"x6 1/2".

In order to support the snare drums a snare stand is needed. (duh...) When mounted, a snare drum looks probably like this:

(Isn't it cute? I feel like beating it already...)

The snare stand Sakura uses is model S-2000 and it looks like this:

As you can see, the parts of this drumset are rather expensive... For example, I could live on the money I'd made by selling that snare stand for about... say... a good two weeks or even three.

The toms: There are basically two kinds of toms (all right, the classification I'm pulling really sucks, but so be it. I am not a drummer.) Floor toms and tom-toms.
Toms are mid-sized drums. Their pitch is between a snare's and a bass's.

Tom-toms are usually mounted on the bass drum, and chubby,larger floor toms usually have self-contained hardware.

Additional toms can be mounted on a rack, and smaller toms placed one alongside with the other (rototoms) are usually also mounted on a rack and sometimes appended to the mainframe of the drumset.

Sakura uses tom-toms models CM0808T/B, CM1008T/B, and CM1208T/B.
The floor-toms he uses are model CM1414F/B, CM1616F/B, and CM1816F/B. They look more or less like the one to your left.

Tom-toms need a mount to be held in place and as we pointed out before, this mount is usually appended to the the bass drum shell. Floor toms need rods or "legs" that lift it from the floor (otherwise it wouldn't sound good).

Cymbals

If you take a look at the diagram of Sakura's drumset, you'll notice some round shapes which read "A, B, C, D, E, and F", Those are the cymbals.
Cymbals look like this one to the right.

They are given different letters in the diagram because they are all different cymbals. (Duh! Michelle is an idiot and she thinks everyone else also is!)

As you can also see, Sakura uses Sabian Hand Hammered cymbals.

According to the maker, these cymbals' performance in pitch terms should be as in the following table.

This is, of course, comparing to the same maker's cymbals (only different styles)

As I said earlier, each cymbal is different and that's why they've been given a different letter in the diagram.

A: 20" HH Medium Ride
B: 18" HH Medium Crash
C: 18" HH Medium Thin Crash
D: 10" HH Splash
E: 20" HH Chinese
F: 14" HH Regular hats (top and bottom)

So... let's go to the specifics of each.

(All these pictures have been obtained from the Sabian online catalogue 2003. I haven't made the drawings myself, mind you. I've left the comments in Japanese below, because when I feel like it, I think I'm gonna tell you what they mean. They are mostly specifications about the type of sound you'll obtain with them) The rough value of these cymbals (I mean all of them together, not individually) adds up to... ¥230,000 (about 2 300 US$)

A Ride: The ride is a large, relatively thick cymbal of 19" to 22" in diameter.

B and C - Crash: The crash is a mid-sized cymbal (16" to 18" diam.) Its sound is very typical, response is fast and it decays fast when hit hard.

D Splash: a small cymbal, as you can see.

E Chinese: the rather well-known cymbal that gives that "Ancient China" effect.

F Hi-Hats: Set of two rather small cymbals (13" to 15").

In order to keep all these in place, Sakura (or any other drummer who doesn't posses magic powers or telechinetic abilities) needs cymbal stands and hi-hat stands.

The hi-hat stand Sakura uses is model H-2000 and it looks like this one to the left. Hi-hat stands need a foot pedal to lower the top cymbal onto the bottom one. The top cymbal is held by clutches on a rod that moves as one steps on the pedal, the lower cymbal doesn't move (usually) but its angle can be adjusted using an ad-hoc device. This prevents the two cymbals from locking together in a vacuum when they contact each other(airlock) which would be funny... or then again, it wouldn't.
Also bottom cymbals sometimes have holes, to alleviate the airlock. I'm not sure if this is the norm or not.

The other cymbals stands that Sakura uses are models B-855W and four C-855W. I have read that these stands usually have small plastic sleeves around the top threads, in order to prevent the cymbals from cracking.

The rack (where everything binds into one big, pretty drumset) looks something like the pic to your right and it's worth around ¥43,000. The connectors to hold the toms are models t-980W, TX-80 (two of these), TH-100S.
BA-92BW.

One of the few things Pearl manufactures but Sakura doesn't use is the drummer's stool. This is because Sakura uses his own stool, which he finds himself a lot more at ease with. You can see a picture of Sakura's Stool (or "throne") (the mall padded seat). Yes, Sakura is sitting on it, showing the correct body position to assume when drumming. (This image comes from his book too. Clicking it will open a larger version of it in a separate window.)

Sakura's drumsticks is next part of this report.
Click to proceed...